News Release

Carolina scientist recognized as one of nation’s 
top young researchers by W.M. Keck Foundation

CHAPEL HILL – A faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been honored with one of the nation’s most prestigious awards for young scientists.

The W.M. Keck Foundation named Dr. Brian Kuhlman, assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics in the UNC School of Medicine, to its 2005 W. M. Keck Distinguished Young Scholars in Medical Research Program. He was among a select group of national honorees and the first Carolina scientist to earn the distinction, which includes a $1 million grant to fund his research over the next five years. Kuhlman, 35, joined the UNC faculty in 2002.

Kuhlman’s current research focuses on how proteins interact and how alterations to these interactions can lead to developmental abnormalities or diseases such as cancer. The W. M. Keck Foundation funding will enable him to take his research to the next level -- using computers to redesign proteins so that their interactions can be manipulated to generate new molecular tools for medicine, industry and basic research.

"Protein-protein interactions are central to most cellular processes, and thus the potential applications for this technology are enormous," Dr. David Lee, chair of the UNC department of biochemistry and biophysics, wrote in a letter nominating Kuhlman for the W. M. Keck program. "They include the creation of new tools to probe mechanisms of cell biology as well as the development of protein therapeutics."

In applying his research to medicine, Kuhlman will try to redesign proteins so that they act like antibodies. Antibodies are increasingly being used in new ways to treat diseases, including breast cancer.

But Kuhlman’s research has implications that extend beyond medicine. Because he will attempt to create new types of protein interactions rather than modify existing

ones, his approach promises to result in numerous other molecular tools that can each be crafted to serve a unique function.

Launched in 1998, the W. M. Keck Distinguished Young Scholars Program supports groundbreaking research that addresses the fundamental mechanisms of human disease. The research must be conducted by young investigators who exhibit extraordinary promise for independent basic biological and medical research while demonstrating the potential for academic leadership.

Only 30 universities were invited to nominate one of their faculty members for the honor. The foundation’s medical research staff and a "Young Scholars" Scientific Advisory Committee, an outside panel of scientific experts, then evaluate each application. The committee recommends the four winners to the foundation’s board of directors.

The W.M. Keck Foundation honor marks a major milestone in Kuhlman’s already-impressive career. While earning his doctorate at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, he was recognized with the school’s highest award for excellence in graduate research. He went on to work with Dr. David Baker as a postdoctoral trainee at the University of Washington in Seattle, and they later earned the Foresight Institute’s 2004 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology. Since coming to UNC, Kuhlman’s honors include the Searle Scholar Award, the Sloan Research Fellowship Award and the Beckman Young Investigator Award.

Lee said Kuhlman’s remarkable history of distinctions at such an early stage in his career reflects the young researcher’s exceptional productivity and contributions. It also shows how Kuhlman’s expertise spans computational and experimental disciplines, enabling him "to incorporate these quite different but mutually reinforcing approaches in his work," Lee said.

Given that track record, Lee said, Kuhlman’s career is sure to flourish. "I am equally confident that he will have a substantial and important impact as a leader in a field that has enormous potential for basic biology, industrial processes and possibly medicine," he wrote in his nominating letter.

The $1 million to fund Kuhlman’s research follows two major grants that the W.M. Keck Foundation awarded to Carolina in the past decade. The foundation made grants of $1 million each to create the W.M. Keck Animal Models Center in the School of Medicine and the W.M. Keck Atomic Imaging and Manipulation System in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

"The W. M. Keck Foundation is a model for supporting the highest quality research in numerous scientific disciplines," said Dr. Robert Shelton, UNC’s executive vice chancellor and provost. "Carolina is proud to invest in scholars such as Dr. Kuhlman, who represents the next generation of scientific leadership in this country."

Based in Los Angeles, the W.M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 by the late W.M. Keck, founder of the Superior Oil Co. The foundation's grant-making program focuses on pioneering efforts in medical research, science and engineering. The foundation also maintains a Southern California Grant Program that supports civic and community services with a special emphasis on children and youth.

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Photo URL: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/faculty/kuhlman_brian_05.JPG

Contact: Scott Ragland, (919) 962-0027 or scott_ragland@unc.edu